Dell Venue Pro

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Dell has announced that it plans to move its 25,000 employees off of the BlackBerry platform and on to its own device, the Dell Venue Pro, which runs Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft.

“Clearly in this decision we are competing with RIM, because we’re kicking them out,” the computer maker’s chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, said in an interview.

“We actually had a conversation last night around creating a site on eBay where we can actually sell these BlackBerry devices” that employees return, Mr. Gladden said. He added that he hasn’t told RIM of his plans, adding, “it’s not clear to them the scope of what we’re doing.”

Mark Guibert, RIM’s senior vice president of corporate marketing dismissed the move as a publicity stunt…

“We find it highly unlikely that they will actually save any money with this move and far more likely they were looking for a little free publicity…”

Personally I don’t think that there is any doubt that this is a publicity stunt… When’s the last time you heard of someone buying a phone from Dell? The problem for RIM, however, is that Dell isn’t the only manufacturer coming after the BlackBerry with Windows Phone 7 in the enterprise…